yc

Who is Soham Parekh, the serial moonlighter Silicon Valley startups can’t stop hiring?

Startups /

In the last week, social media users have shared dozens of stories about encounters with Soham Parekh, a software engineer who seems to have been simultaneously working at multiple Silicon Valley startups — unbeknownst to the companies — for the last several years. But who is Parekh, how did he pull off his career as […]

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Unpacking Rippling vs Deel: corporate espionage and a $16.8B plot twist

Venture /

Despite courtroom chaos, Rippling is still going full steam ahead. The HR tech startup at the center of an increasingly dramatic legal battle with rival Deel just raised a fresh $450 million in funding at a $16.8 billion valuation, and launched a new “Startup Stack” to woo early-stage companies—winning over Y Combinator as both an

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Y Combinator says Google is a ‘monopolist’ that has ‘stunted’ the startup ecosystem

Startups /

Fabled startup investor and accelerator Y Combinator has some choice words for Google in an amicus brief it just submitted in the U.S.’s monopoly case against the search giant. In the brief, YC charged that Google is a “monopolist” that has “stunted” the U.S. startup ecosystem by making VC firms like itself hesitate to fund

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Every year, it seems like there’s at least one big YC controversy

AI /

Optifye.ai, a Y Combinator-backed startup, sparked massive social media backlash this week after its demo went viral. The video, which shows how the company’s AI-powered cameras track factory workers in real-time, quickly caught fire online, with criticism flooding in on X and Hacker News. In the clip, a supervisor calls out an underperforming worker, sparking

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Y Combinator deletes posts after a startup’s demo goes viral

Startups /

A demo from Optifye.ai, a member of Y Combinator’s current cohort, sparked a social media backlash that ended up with YC deleting it off its socials. Optifye says it’s building software to help factory owners know who’s working — and who isn’t — in “real-time” thanks to AI-powered security cameras it places on assembly lines,

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It’s the end of the road for Cruise, and Bluesky is still taking off

Transportation /

Almost one decade after its $1 billion acquisition of Cruise, automaker General Motors has decided to give up on the self-driving startup. GM will now use Cruise tech to improve its own advanced driver assistance system with the ultimate goal of offering personal autonomous vehicles.  Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha

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YC-backed Zimi raises $2M to help international merchants easily sell in the U.S.

Venture /

Audrey Djiya and Peter Nsaka always wanted to be founders.  Djiya’s parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all entrepreneurs, and even as she took a consulting job after college, she kept an idea journal, documenting the problems she saw and the potential ways technology could help solve them.  “Growing up watching family members move goods cross-border,

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As YC retreats from Africa, alumni launch accelerators to fill the gap

Venture /

The influential accelerator Y Combinator made a splash in Africa in 2020 when it shined its light on the market and began to accept startups from the region into its cohorts. The move was huge: in this nascent market, startups especially rely on programs like these to find their feet and connect with investors, and

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